CAIRO: Egypt s interior ministry said Tuesday the Egyptian group which carried out three simultaneous suicide bombings in the Sinai last month received support from Palestinian militants in Gaza and Egypt. Several members of the Tawhid wal Jihad group blamed for the bombings went to the Gaza Strip for training in weapons and explosives, it said in a statement. Group leader Nasser Khamis Al-Mallahi sought to send those who perpetrated the Dahab attacks – Ahmed Mohammed Al-Koreimi, Mohammed Abdelaziz Nafei and Atallah Al-Korm – to Gaza for weapons handling and bomb-making training, it said. The statement said Egyptian security had verified that at least two members of the organization, brothers Ayman and Yusri Mohareb, crossed into the Gaza Strip to prepare for the operation. They were part of a larger group that had contacts with Palestinian (Islamic) fundamentalists, the interior ministry said. But it did not confirm the bombers themselves had reached the Gaza Strip. Twenty people were killed, including several foreigners, and 90 were wounded on April 24, when the three suicide bombings ripped through the popular Red Sea resort of Dahab during a peak holiday season. According to Egyptian security sources, Mallahi was killed during a raid by police in Sinai earlier this month. The authorities have blamed Tawhid wal Jihad (Unification and Holy War) for all bombings that took place in the peninsula over the past two years.
The authorities have described the group as Sinai Bedouins with militant Islamic views, though the group itself has never issued a statement or claimed responsibility for attacks.
More than 60 people were also killed in multiple bombings in Sharm El-Sheikh on July 23 last year and another 34 people died in attacks further up the Red Sea coast in October 2004. The statement did not say whether the Palestinians involved in the attacks belonged to a specific group but named three Palestinian militants who financed their Egyptian counterparts and offered logistical support from Egypt. According to Egyptian security sources, the three Palestinians are in Egypt s custody. Security experts have suspected that cells linked to Osama bin Laden s Al-Qaeda network have been operating in the Gaza Strip, although Israeli and Palestinian officials have not provided confirmation. AFP
